San Fran Nan doesn’t want this on the media campaign trail. It would haunt the Dems in their debates. Since the Dems have now an investment in defeat, getting this vote out of the way is actually good for Dems trashing the Pubs and W.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush expressed optimism Wednesday about a possible deal with Democrats on the war funding bill, but neither side seemed closer to compromise.

“I’m confident, with goodwill on both sides, that we can move beyond political statements,” Bush said, a day after his veto of a $124 billion war spending bill that included a deadline for U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacted coolly to a GOP proposal to break the deadlock.

Republicans have expressed a willingness to put benchmarks for progress on Iraq’s government, as long as there is no U.S. withdrawal time frame, Pelosi said. “Benchmarks without teeth are, what, a conversation?” Pelosi asked.

Bush has invited congressional leaders to a White House meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Shortly before the meeting, the House failed to override Bush’s veto. The 222-203 vote was far short of the two-thirds majority it would take to override a presidential veto.

Earlier Wednesday, give and take on the House floor showed how far apart the two sides are.

“Now into the fifth year of a failed policy, this administration should get a clue,” Pelosi said. “It’s not working.”

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-California, replied, “You’ve made your point. You had your dog-and-pony show. You’ve posed for political holy pictures on TV. Now what is your plan to support the troops?”

Republicans insist time is running out before lack of funding begins to affect the troops. (Full story)

One House GOP leader said he hopes both sides can agree on a negotiation team that would begin around-the-clock talks.

Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House minority whip, said he hopes participants at the White House meeting can agree on a team “to get this settled.”

Blunt accused Democrats of wasting time on a bill that would never become law.

Anticipating Bush’s veto, Democrats began crafting a new bill, which strips the troop withdrawal language and adds a series of benchmarks that would measure the progress of the Iraqi government.

The big question facing lawmakers and the White House is whether to require consequences if the benchmarks aren’t met. Democrats and some Republicans support consequences, while the White House fiercely opposes them.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said Wednesday that Bush vetoed “the will of the American people” expressed in November’s elections.

“We’ve got to begin to reduce our troop presence because there’s no military solution in Iraq,” Levin said.

In a televised address Tuesday explaining the long-threatened veto, Bush said the measure “substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military leaders.”

In response, Democratic congressional leaders said Bush must explain how he will bring the four-year-old war to a close.

“A veto means denying our troops the resources and the strategy that they need. After more than four years of a failed policy, it’s time for Iraq to take responsibility for its own future,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told CNN’s “American Morning.”

Senate GOP leader open to benchmarks
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said Tuesday that he would be open to including “properly crafted” benchmarks for Iraq’s government to meet in a new bill.

“I do think there are some kinds of benchmarks that might well achieve bipartisan support and might actually even conceivably be helpful to the effort in Iraq,” McConnell said. “And that’s what we’re going to be looking for.”

But the White House has equated any kind of binding benchmarks for political progress with the kind of deadlines it has long opposed.

Benchmarks under discussion would include passing laws related to the sharing of oil revenue and national reconciliation and reducing sectarian violence — measures that Bush has publicly pressed the Iraqis to meet.

A senior Republican lawmaker, working behind the scenes with senators from both parties, has suggested a possible way to bridge the gap — calling for troops to be withdrawn if the benchmarks aren’t met but allowing the president to waive that requirement if he chooses.

Bush: Funds urgently needed
Bush said the money in his spending bill is urgently needed to fund U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the money would go to Iraq, where the combat operations now cost about $2 billion a week.

But the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has concluded that the Pentagon could wage war through July without additional funding.

“Whatever our differences, surely we can agree that our troops are worthy of this funding and that we have a responsibility to get it to them without further delay,” Bush said. (Watch military brass prepare for a possible money shortage )

The veto is only the second of Bush’s presidency. The first, in July 2006, killed a bill that would have expanded federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

The latest came on the fourth anniversary of Bush’s 2003 speech from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, when he declared that “major combat” in Iraq was over.

More than 3,200 Americans have been killed in Iraq since then, and the war has become widely unpopular at home. (Watch how things have changed since that speech )

Sixty-six percent of Americans in a recent CNN poll said they opposed the conflict, and 60 percent said they backed Congress in its standoff with the White House.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino accused congressional Democrats of “a trumped-up political stunt” by sending the war funding bill to Bush’s desk on the speech’s anniversary.

did you see Fox and Friends this morning? After Nancy finished blubbering Allison Cammerota remarked “geez she looked like she was gonna cry.” No one commented and quickly brushed the comment aside but boy did she.

The Rats are much more interested in being on the record for their far out looney base who have pressured them to get the troops out of Iraq. This is all about winning the next Presidential race. The Rats have to cowtow to their nut case wacko lefty base or they have no chance of winning the next election. What is so sad is that the Rats are more concerned about keeping their political power than in winning the war by defeating the terrorists and supporting the good old USA.

The failure of the Democrat Party to surrender America to Radical Islam “signals the End of the Great War on Bush, that the Democrats have fought for 6+ long years”, Speaker Pelosi said today.

“Without the hope of a surrender, or even an impeachment, further fighting would be a useless waste of Democrat effort, better used for buying votes”, piped in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

From the Middle East, an anonymous Al Qeada source vowed the movement would continue to fight on to the bitter end, despite the loss of this key ally.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean, returning from another donor-funded ski trip in a Gulfstream 5, expressed some shock at the realization, but declared that the Democratic Party would regroup, and continue to fight for it’s objectives of taking money from honest, hard working citizens to provide Uber-Rich lifestyles for themselves, selling out the Nation, and striving to bring Radical Socialist Misery to all Americans.

When it was clinton, CNN says “House Republicans fail”. When its dems and Bush its simply” The House of Representatives failed.

House Republicans fail to override Clinton estate tax veto

September 7, 2000

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Clinton on Thursday praised congressional Democrats who helped sustain his veto of a GOP-backed measure to repeal estate taxes as prospects for a compromise on the election-year legislation appeared unlikely.

Clinton vetoed the measure last week, calling it an irresponsible break for the rich at the expense of other taxpayers. Thursday’s 274-157 margin fell 14 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto. Only one Republican opposed the bill, while 53 Democrats joined 220 Republicans in their override attempt.

“After more than four years of a failed policy, its time for Iraq to take responsibility for its own future, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid”

To do that is like a police officer picking up a little kid in a crime-infested ghetto, telling him it will be alright, driving down the street two blocks, and then forcing the kid out of the car and back out on the street, and the police officer driving off thinking he just done something good.

Sen Thompson’s statement about them being deeply embedded with the MoveOn.Org crowd is a simple truth. The fact that they even took a vote - to get on record twice - shows that they are insulated from reality.

Where are all those folks that were pissed off when the Republicans were in office and did not pass that Nuclear Option. We’ll boy would we be in deep crap had that been passed. Even if they were inept, I am greatful for that.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said Wednesday that Bush vetoed the will of the American people expressed in Novembers elections.

Based on the President's official veto signing statement, it is the Democrats who acted against the "will of the people" from the 2004 election - in which a president was chosen, and it was not Congress - by sending this POS pork laden surrender bill to President Bush in the first place.

It’s a good thing for the surrender wing of the Congress that the vote was taken today. They were bound to be getting more and more venom from those of us that were angry about their antics to begin with, and there would have been even more of their lot to abandon the surrender monkey wing by next week.

35
posted on 05/02/2007 12:10:09 PM PDT
by AFPhys
((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))

I sent GrannyNanny a “Mission Accomplished” e-mail, congratulating the Democrat Party on their support for the Moveon loonies and the terrorists, and urging them to keep up their efforts to make Republicans look good.

Yep. The Democrats could muster only 218 - the bare majority of the House for their Cut N Run bill. They needed 290 votes to override. They were nowhere near that and made no attempt to obtain Republican support for their plan. This is a reality check to arrogant libs.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

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